Obstacles To Happiness
Why are some people chronically unhappy?
Sometimes chronic Unhappiness comes from a belief or a learned pattern of interacting with oneself and other people in the world that feels familiar. Which means that it's very likely that that person experienced a family environment when they grew up that was chronically unhappy. So they're repeating what they've learned because it feels correct, it feels right, even though it doesn't feel good.
Why do we often repeat patterns that make us unhappy?
Actually, I think you are compelled, or it's so familiar to repeat what you learned. It's like speaking English to you; it's your first language. It's really easy; you've done that since you were a baby. It doesn't take any thought, it doesn't take any energy, it's just natural. So we have reflective patterned ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that are natural to us because of where we grew up and how we responded to those experiences. But those may not be things we want to replicate in our lives later and we certainly don't want to pass those on to our children. But because we had an emotional decision that we made when we were kids about those experiences, that's really either hard black or white, it's very extreme one way or the other because as a child, when you get impacted by influences around you, you have to make a survival based decision in those moments that work for you at that time. Those decisions then become a survival strategy that help you survive in that moment, in that family. But twenty or thirty years later those strategies, those decisions have now become the template of your personality like the hard drive of your computer. And even though they used to work then and there they may not work anymore. But because they're so ingrained and they're so early it's like trying to chance the software without changing the hardware. You can't do it unless you take the time to go back, uncover what the original decisions were, tweak them at the source and then re-parent yourself differently so that you can catch up to the present and start to work in concert between you head and your emotions instead of in conflict.
Is it possible to be happy during hard times?
Actually, I think it's absolutely possible to have a positive attitude no matter what's going on. In fact, that's the key and the difference between happiness and pleasure or happiness and that false sense of "everything is OK" but not really.Happiness is something that is so sustainable because your expectations when you're struggling can be lowered appropriately so that you can continue to meet the bar and you can feel like, "You know what? No matter what, I have what I need and I am what I need. I have love. I have my own essence and as long as I can love and be loved, what else really matters?"
What are some common obstacles to happiness?
One of the ways that we create unhappiness for ourselves is to have shaming or self-critical thoughts which run through our minds like a video tape or an audio tape that says "I'm not okay." When you think that "I'm not okay," somehow you then feel depressed, or you feel anxious. By the way, "I'm not okay" can also be a fear message. So you can be scaring yourself or shaming yourself. Okay? If you feel depressed or anxious then because that's what you're telling yourself or that's the video tape you're running in your head, you will then tend to do something self-defeating that validates what you feel. So if I feel depressed and I feel anxious and I'm saying, "I don't look good today and I'm going to have a fat and ugly day," I'm going to wear something that I don't feel very attractive in because that's going to prove me right. Now I get to say, "boy I really do look bad" when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. And the cycle will continue. It will perpetuate for a while. Self-defeating thought, negative, critical thought, scary thought creates depression anxiety, self-defeating behavior, around and around and around. That chain link. Eventually, when you get tired of the shaming process, you might decide "wait a minute, maybe it's not me." "Maybe it's he or she or them that's really not okay," so you get into a blaming cycle. When I think you're not okay, I feel hurt. I feel angry. What do I do when I'm hurt and angry? I do something that acts out. I take my frustration out on someone else. I rebel. I do something that's more expressive of the feeling instead of repressive. So when I do that, I get to justifiably say, "Wow, I'm superior." "Now I'm righteous. It really is all their fault." Continue that cycle for a while until eventually I go, "You know what, maybe it's really not their fault." "Maybe it's me after all." So it's like a figure eight. Shame, blame, shame, blame, back and forth, and back and forth until, eventually, something breaks, hopefully, and you shift it and say "wait a minute, I've got to make a change here cause this pattern doesn't serve me. It certainly doesn't ever really make me feel good. It just makes me feel safe because I know how to do this because I've been doing it for a long time."
What mistakes do people make in trying to attain happiness?
I think people make mistakes when they try to buy happiness or get happiness from something or someone outside of them instead of generating it from within. Often they try to control someone else's behavior as a way to make themselves feel better but that never works. Because no matter what somebody else does, your response to what they do is what determines whether or not your happy, not what they do actually.
What quick fix approaches to happiness should I avoid?
Quick fixes to avoid would be buying anything. I actually have an interesting fact about that. There's a study I read that said that actually the only people that are less happy than the very poor are the very rich. So materialism is inversely proportional to a sense of self security and self esteem. So, buying something: bad idea. Eating something: bad idea. Trying to take something from the outside and stuff it into you, or use it to make you feel differently is not going to work for very long. Even if it works for a moment, it usually has such a potential downside that you wind up having to work harder to then come out of whatever it is that you just did to try to fix it. So you have to solve the problem you just created by trying to get a quick fix.
What are some common myths about happiness?
I think the most common myth is that material possessions create happiness. I think people believe that people who have more things are happier, when in fact it's the opposite of the truth. Especially if those things are something that they continue to believe that they need in order to feel happy. The acquisition of them is a finish line that just keeps moving. So they don't actually have a way to reach that goal and therefore they never feel satisfied. They just feel constantly in need of the next thing.
